


Rainbows with You

by oneoneandone



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27582064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneoneandone/pseuds/oneoneandone
Summary: What beautiful womanWhat a beautiful girlWhat a beautiful morningIn this beautiful worldThey've never bothered to color inside the lines.
Relationships: Ashlyn Harris/Ali Krieger
Kudos: 38





	Rainbows with You

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt**   
>  _Ali comes home to see their little one coloring in ash's tattoos_

Ali pulls into the driveway and turns off the engine, taking a moment to just sit and breathe before heading inside the house. 

Inside, she knows, Ash will be waiting, tired from spending all morning at the trainer’s and all afternoon with the kids. But Ali needs a moment–just a moment–for herself. 

It’s been a long day. 

Her first full day of pre pre-season training as she works to get back into shape after giving birth to their son, their second child. And honestly, it had been so difficult, so much harder than the first time.

She isn’t sure she can do it again.

More, she isn’t sure she wants to.

Coming back after Catey was hard, but even in the beginning, even on the first day back in the gym, she doesn’t remember feeling like this. So tired, so exhausted. Down to her very bones.

She’d felt good then, ready to hop back into the routine of training and practice and competing.

But now, after Jonah, the thought of waking up tomorrow and doing the same thing feels almost impossible. It feels like too much, like an unreachable goal with insurmountable odds.

 _Still_ , Ali thinks to herself, gathering her training bag from where she threw it onto the passenger seat, _it’s only the first day. It will get better._

 _And if it doesn’t?_ the voice calls up from that dark, afraid place in her gut.

But she’s familiar with the voice, with the doubts. She’s lived with them her whole life.

 _If it doesn’t_ , she answers, _I’ll have a decision to make. And I’ll survive_.

She always has before.

—–

Inside, the house is quiet.

The kind of quiet that usual means mischief is brewing. Or trouble.

Catey’s curiosity getting the better of her, perhaps, and deciding to cut her own hair while Ali made dinner. The dog chewing up the leather desk chair in the office the two women share. A diaper explosion while Jonah sleeps on, unaware of the mess.

And Ali braces herself as she steps further into the home she shares with her wife, their children, the little French bulldog they got in a moment of overconfidence, believing that they could handle a newborn and a puppy at the same time.

But everything seems in order.

The kitchen is warm and filled with an aroma that sets her stomach growling even before she cracks the oven and sees the pan of lasagna bubbling away inside. And the dishes are done, and the floor is clean, and the table is even set, a small vase of roses set in just beside her plate as a centerpiece.

In the hall, she hears soft whispers. Catey’s sweet, gentle voice, and Ash’s patient, loving one.

“Not too hard,” Ali hears her wife caution softly. “Remember, careful, like how we hold Jonah or pet Pebbles, okay?”

When she reaches the threshold of the den, she’s taken completely by surprise.

Whatever activity Ali could have imagined her wife and daughter involved in, it certainly wasn’t this. And she’s glad, so glad, that she hadn’t called out when she first walked through the door, that she’d made her way through the house quietly.

Because this, this was something she’d remember forever, this was a memory she would treasure forever.

Catey, her honey-blonde hair tied up in a messy braid, sits in her mother’s lap, marker held carefully in her chubby toddler hands, coloring in the lines of one of Ash’s tattoos. Lines of blue and pink, scribbles of red and green, cover the blonde’s arm, and she watches as her daughter delicately traces a Grecian nose in vibrant purple. And if that weren’t adorable enough, spread out on a blanket on the floor, their three-month-old son sleeps, faithful watchdog at his side, patiently watching the little boy sleep, as his girls bend their heads into each other and giggle with pure happiness.

As Ali watches, she feels the exhaustion slip away, fade out of her bones. Feels the cold of the rainy afternoon dissipate as the home fires in her heart kindle and spark and catch, as the warm love of watching the people she loves spreads through her chest, into her limbs. And she remembers—this is what means everything.

This woman. This gorgeous little girl, this sweet little boy.

This is the part of her life that gives her meaning, that fuels her and inspires her.

This is who she is. Not the woman on the field, not the number or the position or the competition.

This.

This woman who is loved by these people.

“Hey,” Ash’s soft voice interrupts her epiphany, “look who’s home,” and when she looks up she sees her own smile reflected back at her in miniature. Innocent and so full of love.

“Mama,” Catey says excitedly, “we’re coloring!”

And Ali steps further into the room, into the center of her life.

“I see that,” she answers quietly and sits down on the thick carpet, careful not to disturb her napping son, “how pretty!”

Ash gives her a tired but happy smile, and there’s little more that Ali wants to do right now than kiss her, feel her wife’s strong arms holding her close.

“Look—” her daughter whispers loudly at first, until Ash lifts a finger to her lips as a reminder.

She starts again, quieter.

“Look, mama, mommy’s got a coloring book on her, and when I’m bigger I can get one too.”

Ali can’t quite muffle the laugh that wants to escape at the look Ash gives her. Rueful and apologetic, but mostly just amused.

“Oh,” she answers, pulling Catey into her lap to plant a kiss atop her daughter’s head, “is that so?”

“Mommy said,” the little girl tells her, “she said when I’m big I can have a too too!”

Her excitement is palpable, contagious, and Ali smiles widely.

“I think Mommy’s right,” she tells their daughter, “when you’re a much bigger girl you can get a tattoo just like she and I have.”

And she realizes her mistake the moment the words leave her mouth, the moment she feels her daughter shift, with interest, to look up at her.

The question, she figures later, was inevitable.

—–

The house is dark and quiet. The leftovers packed away for tomorrow, the toys all cleaned up. Teeth brushed and bathtime over. A final drink and a last story read.

In the little bedroom across the hall from their own, Ali rocks and hums as she feeds Jonah one last time before putting him down for the night.

This time it’s Ash who appears in the doorway, silhouetted against the light from the hall. She waits, content just to watch as Ali lays the sleepy boy down in his crib, covers him carefully with the blanket.

Before kids, they’d often be up for hours yet. But now, at least, they’re too tired.

A good kind of tired. The content kind.

In the hall, Ash wraps her arms around Ali from behind and breathes in, taking in the scent of her wife, that lingering clean baby smell.

“You’re exhausted,” she whispers. “Let’s get you to bed and you can tell me how your first day back in training went.”

But for a moment, Ali pauses, just standing there and drinking in the feel of her wife. The warmth that radiates from Ash’s body into her own, how loved she feels there, safe in the blonde’s embrace.

“Okay,” she answers with a quiet smile, “and you can tell me how I ended up with a three-year-old coloring in my _Liebe_ tattoo this afternoon.”

Ash laughs. “Oh, honey,” she says, “you know the first rule of Kid Club … ”

And Ali can’t help but join in.

 _On the whole_ , she thinks later, curled into her wife in their bed, dog snoring at their feet, _it was a good day_.

**Author's Note:**

> "Beautiful Girl," The Samples


End file.
